What They Are Saying … about the Newtown massacre

Albanian children light candles as pay their respects in Tirana’s main square Monday to the victims of a elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Gent Shkullakugent, AFP/Getty Images

What some of the nation’s columnists are saying about Friday’s shooting in Connecticut:

Perhaps anger about Newtown and other incidents will be enough to help pass far-reaching restrictions on gun ownership or influence the entertainment industry to change its ways. But the only likely outcome is that schools will be transformed into fortresses even more than they already were. The rhetoric we hear after Newtown, as it is after all senseless crimes, will make many of us feel better and allow politicians to pretend that they are doing something. But the impulse to respond will be about our desire to have the illusion of control over uncontrollable events.— Jonathan Tobin,
Commentary Magazine

We are not helpless to stop the massacre of innocent children. We must begin — today, right now, this minute — taking guns out of the hands of madmen, and the first step should be a ban on military-style assault weapons such as the rifle used to turn a Connecticut school into a slaughterhouse.— Eugene Robinson,
Washington Post Writers Group

It would be a welcome change of pace to resist the urge to introduce a mass of legislation or to use action or inaction as a political weapon. It makes far more sense, as Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., suggested on Sunday, to convene a serious commission to delve into the nexus of culture, mental health and gun laws. (In fact he’ll have free time next year and should head it up.)— Jennifer Rubin, Wall Street Journal

Every country has a sizable contingent of mentally ill citizens. We’re the one that gives them the technological power to play god.— Gail Collins, New York Times

Almost all of the public-policy discussion about Newtown has focused on a debate over the need for more gun control. In reality, gun control in a country that already has 200 million privately owned firearms is likely to do little to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. We would be better off debating two taboo subjects — the laws that make it difficult to control people with mental illness and the growing body of evidence that “gun-free” zones, which ban the carrying of firearms by law-abiding individuals, don’t work.— John Fund, National Review

The memory of the Newtown horror will fade. These places — Newtown, Tucson, Aurora, Columbine — become “Jeopardy” questions and someone will point out how rare they are. But far from rare and hardly noticed is the routine mayhem caused by guns — handguns, not combat stuff — and the daily shooting of children. Every weekend we aggregate a Newtown. It is our national shame.— Richard Cohen,
Washington Post Writers Group

If the reaction to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is anything like the reaction to Sept. 11, we’re in for a decade or more of frantic overreaction and wasteful, destructive policies based on the false promise of perfect safety.— Gene Healy, Washington Examiner

Victims who lost loved ones in Aurora, Tucson, and other mass shootings are leading the way, calling for action to spare other families the tragedies they have suffered. This week, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said it was time to engage in this conversation and address what can be done to reduce gun deaths and injuries. Americans are coming together in that vast middle policy ground, and speaking out for common-sense laws that will prevent much of the bloodshed to which we are far too accustomed. After all, in America it’s often the people who lead.
Now it’s time for our leaders to follow.— Dan Gross, Brady Campaign president, in the Hartford Courant

If ever there were a moment for President Obama to learn from history, it is now, in the wake of Friday’s shootings at the elementary school at Newtown, Conn. The timely lesson for Obama, drawn from the experience of Lyndon B. Johnson — the last president to aggressively fight for comprehensive gun control — is this: Demand action on comprehensive gun control immediately from this Congress or lose the opportunity during your presidency. Obama has a unique opportunity: a lame-duck session of Congress. If he learns from the lesson of LBJ — two weeks to get action — and takes advantage of the fact that many members can vote their conscience without fear of retribution by the gun lobby because they are not seeking reelection, this nation may “complete the task” of passing comprehensive gun controls. That’s an opportunity that is worth grasping out of the unspeakable tragedy that occurred in Newtown, Conn.— Joseph A. Califano Jr.,
LBJ’s top aide for domestic policy
If the media covered guns without tragedy as a background, you would learn that guns save lives, which is why we want our police heavily armed, with high-capacity magazines, and high-powered rifles, and all the ammunition they can carry. You would learn that you need guns and ammo and full-capacity magazines — for the exact same reason. You would learn that your need is even greater, because YOU are the first responders, and police are always second.
— Alan Korwin, Human Events

American schoolchildren are protected by building codes that govern stairways and windows. School buses must meet safety standards, and the bus drivers have to pass tests. Cafeteria food is regulated for safety. The only things we seem lax about are the things most likely to kill.— Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

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